GX640 Owners - Post Your Temps!

Well, I haven't done anything to the inside of my laptop, so if it came with pads it still has pads. Are you sure MSI aren't using paste, though?

 

Well from what i've seen with all the other models, they were off pads, i mean its possible that it could be paste but with the temperature out of place i dont think so (Although it is GDDR5), my temps can vary up to 10C because mine are defo pads.

We really do need someone to take a peak lmao. (They used pads due to the distance between memory and hs though.)

 

I still don't understand why they kept on using crappy pads .. Could have achieved better cooling if there weren't a massive gap between the heatsink and the memory.

 

Alright, so now that I have spent more time with this laptop I have a few questions. First off, this thing is running great, plays games very well and the speed that it does everything at is fantastic. However, since I last reported my temps it seems that they have gone up somewhat. During gaming (DoW II) the temp now stabilizes in the range of 93C-95C, which is about 5C above what it was doing before. Also, I will occasionally get this really high pitched whining sound coming from what I believe to be the GPU once in awhile (it seems to do this especially during certain games such as the Sims 3, although it does eventually seem to stop).

The temperature of the laptop never gets hot so that isn't a problem and I really don't care about how hot the air coming out of the vent is. But not really knowing anything about temps, all I want to know if this is too high / if it will lead to damage or shorter lifespan for the laptop (because others are reporting maxing out at significantly lower temps). Also, is that whining noise something to be concerned about?

PS. I did the ICD compound upgrade, ambient temp ranges from 21-23C, I am not using a notebook cooler atm, and if I downclock to 200/300 and turn the screen brightness way down the temp sits around 50C-51C.

 

The whining is probably the relatively common Intel CPU whining issue. Supposedly disabling the C4 state fixes it.

 

Disabling the C4 state? Sorry, but I have no idea what that is

 

On second thought, the CPU whine typically occurs when the CPU is idling, so that doesn't quite explain it. You should try to see if you can isolate the cause of the noise, I guess.

 

@lackofcheese and others:

What are "pads," and when ordering mine, should I upgrade to the Arctic Silver, or the IC Diamond 7 thermal paste? I've used A.S. on my desktops, but I'm not sure if it even does much, considering it gets so hot in Cali anyways.

 

They use paste for core, they use pads for memory etc because the distance between them and heatsink is too far apart to use paste. As for why didn't they just custom build the heatsink to accomodate to the GPU completely, I'm guessing 1. It would be very troublesome. 2. Might have problem when some parts are in contact with the heatsink directly which is electric conductive. 3. Expansion and contraction of the heasink directly on some of the part might cause damages.

 

What are "pads" made of?

 

Some kind of silicon compound, they also call these silicon pads.

I think there's different grades as well, because last time when I peeled off the pads on my GPU, and replaced them with some generic ones (later on the GPU died), my reseller told me not to use other pads as those supplied by Clevo are special. Well, the color of the pads in my GPU does look a lot more bluish than generic thermal pads.

 

According to your previous post, the GPU may be too "far" from the heatsink right? Does that mean that a thermal-paste-upgrade with Xoticpc won't be worth it? Also, the CPU prolly wont get that hot on its own will it? Keep in mind that I'll only be playing SC2 on high/ultra or PS2 emulators at most. Also, I do plan to buy the Thermaltake Massive23 ST Notebook Cooler and use it when I'm at home. Do these factors warrant a $35 upgrade that may work only for the CPU, if I even need it at all?

 

The thermal paste upgrade is only for the CPU and GPU core, the thermal pads in the GPU won't be moved. Well, for my case, I changed the stock to ICD 7, around 7C drop in load temp. I would say it's worth it, but if you are only playing PS2/SC2 and sure that you will only be playing these even in the future, then a thermal paste upgrade probably won't be necessary.

 

Ahh. Sounds good. 7C = 44.xxF. Holy moly, that's a big diff man. And who knows? I might play something else in the future. Plus, emulators tax the CPU greatly, and with SC2 on High or Ultra, the same would go for both CPU and the 5850. I think I should get the upgrade, after much thought. Now the big question is: Arctic Silver or IC Diamond? Xotic describes ICD as having the best cooling, but is that just an advertising gimmick? Hmm...

 

ICD 7 is actually much better, artic silver requires set in time, and even after setting in the cooling is not as good as ICD 7. ICD 7 uses crushed diamonds, diamonds are up to 5 times better heat conductor than silver.

 

Yep, fz's put it perfectly.

ICD7 isn't a conductor of electricity is it?

AS5 can bleed too and is a conductive (Metal based compound?)

So icd7 is better and safer at the same time.

 

Yes, ICD 7 is non-conductive, actually I'm not sure why my GPU died even though the technician told me it could be because GPU overheated (I don't exactly but that though because I track my temp all the time), I think it could be due to the artic silver I applied got to some sensitive parts. Or maybe it's because the bios got shocked wiped, because I found my notebook using a stylenote bios rather than the pheonix splash screen it came with.

 

You're confusing yourself there. 7C = 44.6F, but that's a temperature, not a temperature difference. Because 0C = 32F, a difference of 7C works out to a difference of 12.6F.

 

hmm... lolz

So I should get the ICD7 upgrade then kk

 

Thermal paste upgrades do their jobs.

Kudos to ICD7! ( MX-3 also works really well.. Don't really see the difference between MX-3 and ICD7 for my lappy )

 

Well, the game Trine is actually surprisingly demanding. I maxed out all the settings at native resolution and it was pretty much always above 30fps, but it kept my CPU and GPU loaded quite heavily.

Summary as generated by graphing script:
7603 lines of GPU data from 2010-05-17 17:15:38 to 2010-05-17 19:24:06
7605 lines of CPU data from 2010-05-17 17:15:38 to 2010-05-17 19:24:08

Measurement : Min/Avg/Max
CPU Core #0 [°C]: 60.0/83.0/89.0
CPU Core #1 [°C]: 55.0/80.2/89.0
GPU DispIO [°C]: 63.5/80.5/83.0
GPU MemIO [°C]: 70.5/92.0/96.0
GPU Shader [°C]: 66.0/85.1/88.0
CPU [MHz]: 1197.0/2486.3/2527.0
GPU Core [MHz]: 625.0/625.0/625.0
GPU Memory [MHz]: 1000.0/1000.0/1000.0
CPU Load [%]: 0.0/29.3/96.1
GPU Load [%]: 0.0/65.5/83.0

Graph:

 

Hello everyone, so I bought the GX640 last week. Overall, I'm getting about the same IDLE temps from my fellow owners.
I did buy the Thermaltake Massive 23 Notebook cooler, that I just received this morning. So here is a screenshot of my IDLE temps with the cooler ON.
What I did is start up the notebook itself without the cooler for 30 minutes, than I activated the cooler for an other 30 minutes. And voila. here is the screenshot!

PS: The room temperature is about 22-23C

PPS: Normally MAX GPU temps at IDLE would be around 67-68C. I do not know why it did hit 80 because I haven't run any games.

 

Underclocking the GPU would also be a big help at idle.
What's the ambient temperature where you are?

 

Maybe he edited it in but this ^

 

Right, I probably missed that. Let's see what the temps are like with a GPU underclock now.

 

Hmm i think bad paste job or loose hs, thats a bit hot, even for that ambient, and 80 coming from nowhere is strange.

 

I'm wondering if its because the thermaltake is plugged directly in the USB on the notebook to power up.... :S
Anyway, I'll keep monitoring. I'll be having few games to test by this week-end.
I'll keep you guys posted!

 

These are my temps with low brightness, downclocked to 100/375 using the AMD GPU Clock Tool, CPU auto-downclocked to 1200 mhz, not charging, and raised an extra 4 inches off a table to increase airflow, idling.

49C GPU Core, 35C Processor Core

Note the 3hr 27m predicted battery life

 

I'm guessing those are idle temperatures, but they look very good indeed - are you sitting in a very cold room?

 

Yes idling. Not very cold, maybe 68F. So 20C. Room temperature imo.

Now I just need to figure out how to undervolt..

 

Someone was able to undervolt GPU, but i don't think that it's possible to undervolt Cpu (maybe in some months)

 

I know. I tried to follow the instructions to undervolt the GPU, but nothing works.

 

I underclocked the gpu to 100/100 and got instant results

http://img12.imageshack.us/f/tempsri.png/


bear in mind my room is always freakin' hot and humid (Ga weather ftw) 27.2 C

52 for GPU

43,46 for CPU

sort of idle


updated drivers, no close lid problems/artifacts. I'm a happy man, got a good batch. I am getting pretty high idle temps w.o downclocking, but it could be because its really hot/humid. However I will try benchmarks.


Did some really weak games, CSS: low to mid 70's Halo Pc: High 70's
GTA IV: After about 10-20 minutes of gameplay, 84 was the highest I saw, but then again didn't play it for that long.
Half Life's I will put up soon, will be periodically updating this with games and temps.

 

What are the temps shown in that image? I can't view it.

After underclocking my gpu to 100/100, idle temps are around 48C, when doing stuff like internet, skype, office, etc, it stays around 53-55C.

 

I want to know what kind of temps others get in game. I guess GTA IV is either the most demanding game out or second most.(can't forget crysis)

In a room thats 28-29C (29 atm) even hotter today, GTA IV maxed out at 90 didn't want to go above that after a decent amount of play.
Imageshack - gtaivm.jpg

I would possibly run a handful of degrees cooler in a cooler room. I think the cooling is doing an excellent job in this hot weather.

 

GTA is more just poorly optimized really. The GPU and especially CPU have to be overworked to perform at "playable" standards. Which is okay for me, cant stand the series lol.

 

What Catalyst version are you guys using for underclocking and undervolting? Also, did you flash the vBios for this? I tried to underclock and the computer froze. :S

I don't have the vBios update, and I have Catalyst 10.5

 

10.5 CCC and Driver.

I flashed my vBios, but it didn't seem to make any difference.

I would recommend underclocking using the AMD GPU Clock Tool. Some clocks just don't work tho. 300/300 works, 100/100 works, but then 100/400 doesn't, at least for me. It's just weird.

I have yet to figure out how to undervolt. Anyone else care to explain how?

 

I see. I used CCC 10.5 and set it to power savings mode using PowerPlay, and it shows 100/1000 in the Clock Tool. Hmm... why doesn't it lower memory clocks too?

Anyway, I will play a bit more with the clocks. Thanks

 

Not lowering the memory clock seems to me to be an oversight, and one of the things MSI's new vBIOS is supposed to fix.

The GPU Clock Tool is pretty decent. At the moment, my GX640 is set to go to 100/150 on startup.

 

I see. How do you make it so that it applies those clocks on startup? And, also, is it specific to IDLE mode? By which I mean, if I play a game, will it still bump it up automatically?

Thanks~

very busy these days, don't have much time to tinker too much with this myself.. hehehe

 

With regards to startup, we have a dedicated GPU Clock Tool thread now; the answer is there.

However, GPU Clock Tool doesn't do automatic switching - if you use it to set a speed it won't change, and PowerPlay will not do anything. You have to manually change speeds to clock up for a game, so you should have shortcuts to clock speeds you commonly use so it's easier to change them.

 

Cheese is correct. Follow that thread.

Your clocks won't automatically bump up.. but if you have shortcuts for the stock clocks than it shouldn't be an issue. If you try to play a game while downclocked, you'll simply get lag - then you clock back up.

Check the thread and then ask any more questions if need be.

 

This post is sexy.

 

How are some of you getting 3.5 hours? I have it underclocked (powersaver) downclocked gpu 100/100, brightness all the way down and I'm getting 2 hours and 49 minutes. Strange..

 

I typically actually get less than 3 hours. If someone happens to get 3.5 hours, it's likely just because they have a better battery.. fewer background applications.. cooler ambient temperatures... etc. Just small things that add up. Not much you can do

 

1. Undervolt the GPU and the CPU.
2. Turn off everything that isn't essential (BT, WiFi, sound, etc.)
3. Turn down the brightness of the screen to the minimum.
4. Realize that your laptop is no more useful than a typical netbook, only a lot bulkier.

Seriously guys, the GX640 is a gaming powerhouse. Just be grateful that you can squeeze 2+ hours of life out of it. It's already impressive as it is and I'm glad MSI doesn't charge extra for the 9-cell battery.

 

Well, you don't need anything more than a netbook to watch movies for as long as possible during train ir plane trip. And battery life there is essential. While I love playing at home and in my apartment abroad, I also love to have some entertainment when travelling between those destinations.

 

hay i am thinking of buying gx640 my average room temp is 30°c-34°c in summer. I am from Pakistan, will temp be a problem or not??

 

hello everyone,
sorry for my english i'm from belgium ( french language)
i's my review of gx640: P4G / [REVIEW] MSI Gaming Séries GX640 (i5 430m)

changelog of my notebook gx640:
-remove thermal paste and thermal pads (gddr5 , cpu , gpu) for artic silver 5

in the review video of my good temp for this notebook

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoBGULVRl8Q